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For anyone that has worked in the healthcare community for any good length of time, you know how easy it is to become bombarded by a lot of data. Data is essential and required not only to run a healthcare organization, but also to improve how care is provided, eliminate waste that might be happening and to become more efficient in all practices within the system. One of the most helpful tools that any healthcare professional can have at their disposal is to have that data in an easy to understand dashboard. Intuitive dashboards take the guesswork out of all the data being gathered and provide accurate information, which is easy to decipher.

The healthcare industry has a long-standing record of not being able to implement new technologies and better business performance practices due to the complexity of the work and the data that is coming in. Over time, this has become less of an issue with the advent of healthcare analytics and the ability to categorize and quantify healthcare information. But, as of late, software specific to the healthcare industry has been able to reduce the time associated with reporting and real-time treatment/diagnosis, and even present the information in a much more natural format. This presentation is not just for those in the healthcare profession who depend upon information to help them improve care to patients, but also for patients that decide to pull up their information in their personal patient portal.

Intuitive Dashboards for Insiders

Looking firstly at having an intuitive dashboard for healthcare professionals is almost a no-brainer in the fact that these hard-working individual’s time is limited. Having an insightful display that contains meaningful data, actionable instructions and priority ratings helps to take some of the supposition out of everyday patient management and turn it around to data-driven awareness. Interpretation of data, especially on an organizational basis can be tedious, hard to deduce and ultimately wrong, but with the unbiased regimen, fact-based information is provided in a timely manner and with the backing of proven trends and industry standards behind them.

Intuitive dashboards aren’t established just for the doctors who see patients, but also for the organization as a whole. There are many aspects to running such a dynamic business as healthcare, and with this comes the necessity to staff it efficiently, manage the many departments that are associated with care, protect data, bill appropriate payers and provide reports and records to applicable agencies. The many different people involved in the varying levels of care also benefit greatly when information about current organizational needs and processes is prompt, accurate and informative, as well as easy to interpret instead of requiring excessive time to internalize.

Intuitive Dashboards for Patients

Treating patients, especially due to an emergency, can be challenging for any healthcare professional, but is made clear and concise with intuitive dashboards, which provide a simple picture of immediate health information, filtering of non-urgent data and notifications that could help make the difference, especially in life-and-death situations. The intuitive dashboards aren’t necessarily all about extreme situations, but a physician may be notified that the patient sitting in front of them for an annual physical has had an ever-growing level of bad cholesterol and should address this concern with the patient.

For a patient logging into and access their personal health file online, an intuitive dashboard could also help him or her to see that the same rise in cholesterol levels has been noted by the physician, but is right in front of him or her in plain graphics instead of more complex test results or hidden among other numbers that are muddled together. Most patients, when faced with facts, are more likely to become involved in the personal care and care management. Some patients are 100 percent in and try to understand every aspect of their health, however, some are not as willing to grasp terminology, follow-through on all recommendations, or complete suggested routines. However, having an intuitive dashboard allows for more people to gain an understandable perspective of their health and at least have the choice as to how involved they would like to be.

Dashboards for KPI

Dashboards often provide at-a-glance views of KPIs (key performance indicators) relevant to a particular objective or business process. So essentially, dashboards show progress reports. In a healthcare organization, this is great as doctors, nurses and clinicians can see at a glance all the information they need to do their job. The dashboard lays KPIs an data out in graphs and charts which aids in faster understanding and decision making.

Not everything in the healthcare system is perfect, but as improvements are made to technology and data analysis, better care will be seen and felt by all. Intuitive dashboards are just one of the tools that have resulted from demands made by healthcare organizations to better handle data.